Greasemonkey
by Ageless Drake
Summary: Stan doesn't know what to make of Koji.  character study, taken threeyears prior to canon.  StanKoji, Stan POV


So, I've seen all of about half of Oban so far, but, uh, Stan and Koji and their canon ghei? It's wonderful. There you have it. Written for **_Anime-Angel-Ash_**, because it's her fault that I'm watching this anime at all.

**Standard disclaimers, blahblahblah. Oh, yeah, and this is totally, like, yaoi. Mhm. In case you couldn't tell or anything. Stan/Koji. It is trufax. Deal.**_ Also, unbeta'd. OOPS._

* * *

The kid is dark hair and glasses and a complete klutz, but Miguel takes him on because he knows what the hell he's talking about and he can program like a dream. Stan doesn't know what to make of the kid, so he decides to make the kid's life a living hell.

It starts out small. He moves things just enough to trip the kid because he's not looking; he messes with his stupid little lap computer, the way the programs are laid out in an easy to follow pattern; he leaves his things all over the bunk room that Miguel makes them share.

But after a week that gets boring, and Stan has to find new ways of making the kid miserable. Actively shoving him down stairs is the simplest of the things, if not the nicest. The kid gets nicknames pretty soon after that—Pretty Boy and Glasses and Fairy. On more than one occasion, Stan tells him to go home before he breaks a nail.

It's a month before the kid's stoic ignorance of Stan's taunts breaks only to him saying, in a haughty and slightly whining voice, "My _name_ is _Koji_." He has his glasses off and he's smudged with grease and he stares nearsightedly across the hanger at Stan; his hair is back but falling into his eyes. Stan stares at him, memorizes the name instantly, and scoffs as he gets back to work.

There are no more nicknames, but he doesn't call the kid by his name either.

-----

He's been drinking. One of their ships won a race, and he figures he deserves a little celebration; he doesn't do it very often, so why not now? The Grand Pris went well, after all. So he's been drinking and the beers have been going to his head, and when he gets back he stumbles up to the bunk room and finds the kid still up.

The kid hadn't wanted to come drinking with the rest of the pit crew—all three of them together, without him—but Stan is surprised that he's up.

He looks up when the door swishes open and doesn't swish closed because Stan is standing in the way. After a second, he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear and says, "You're back before I thought you would be. Are the others with you?"

"Were you waiting up for me?" He smiles, but it feels too wide and a little lecherous, as he steps in and then leans on the closed door. The kid shifts on his bunk, closing his book and shifting his legs under him. "Expecting something?"

"No!" It comes out too fast. He blushes. "No," he says, quieter and more controlled, "I was just a little worried that I'd have to listen to you bringing back ... somebody."

The kid doesn't say a broad, like anybody else would. In fact, the word he does use makes Stan stop, hand on the wrung to pull himself up onto his bunk. When he looks down at the kid, the kid isn't even looking at him, but down at his fingers.

"What d'ya mean—?"

"I'm sorry," the kid says over him, rushing and, Stan can see, blushing even darker. He adjusts his glasses and shakes his head a little. He clears his throat. "Well, good night."

"Yeah. Night."

-----

The first time he sees the scars on the kid, it's fleeting and on his way into the bathroom, hoping the kid didn't use all the hot water. There's just one big one, the one that he sees in that instant, that goes from just under the kid's rib cage and down past the curl of his towel.

Stan doesn't get his shower because he's staring at the kid's stomach and their third mechanic steals in before he can; she laughs, and he goes off to investigate the strange wound on the kid's belly.

When the door swishes open, the kid is standing there in boxers that are strangely too big _and_ too little for him, staring at his footlocker like he's never seen the damn thing. His back is a cross section of little cuts and scars, and Stan is nearly reaching a hand out for them when the kid dives for something in his footlocker and actually manages to bash his knee in the process.

He swears. Magnificently. Then he notices Stan standing there looking dumb and he grabs a shirt to cover himself like they aren't both men or something.

"So how'd you get it?" It's not the most intelligent thing to say, and the kid stares at him for a second before lifting the shirt away from his stomach and staring at the scar like he's just noticed it. Stan can't help being snide; it's how he deals with the stress: "Get pregnant or something?"

"That'd be a bit lower, actually." The kid grabs his glasses as he says it, settles them with unnecessary adjustment. He puts on his shirt and grabs one boot out of the footlocker. He doesn't say how the scar got there. Stan stares at the ones on his back.

The kid flinches when Stan touches one, and Stan doesn't think he's ever seen anybody move that fast outside of a race.

-----

The first time the kid does anything remotely sexy it isn't even supposed to be sexy. Stan doesn't think it's sexy until much later, anyway. When it happens, it's just strange and amusing and good to know.

They've got a new kid—he's 'the kid' now, which Stan supposes makes Koji just Koji—and Koji is showing him how they've got to fix this mod on this cruiser they've got in. Koji's actually starting to get a little frustrated with the kid. His hair is doing this funny thing where it seems to have a life of it's own. He's got grease smears all over his arms and soot on the palms of his gloves, and he keeps wiping sweat off his face and getting greasy, sooty smears all over his cheeks and forehead. The kid isn't getting it.

When Koji snaps, it's this weird, girlie little thing, with this high pitched, whiny noise and Koji pulling his hair. He's disgusting by that point, takes the spanner from the new kid, and proceeds to fix the damn mod without saying anything else.

When he crawls back out from under the cruiser, he looks much calmer, and just says to the new kid, "That's how you do it," before he wanders off, saying he needs to go take a shower.

It isn't until later, when Stan is sitting there watching the new kid trying to understand what it was Koji did—and later than that, as he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling unable to sleep—that Stan realizes how attractive Koji was, smeared and sweaty and a little annoyed.

It's a distressing thought.

-----

In all his life, nobody ever questioned him or his sexuality, and Stan wasn't entirely aware, until Koji came into his life, that it wasn't exactly a good thing, going off blind assumption of himself.

He comes to this realization when he wakes up in the middle of the night and can hear Koji in the bottom bunk, his breath rushed and shaking. For a second, Stan thinks that Koji woke from a nightmare or something but then—then he hears the shiver in his breath and the quiet sound of flesh moving. And Koji moaning into his pillow softly.

Stan's had sex before, and done _what Koji's doing_ enough times to get it. He lies very still, trying to ignore how his own breathing is starting to speed up and how his heart is pounding like he just ran a mile. On about every third breath, Koji makes this little noise; and after what feels like hours but is probably closer to two minutes, Stan hears Koji flip onto his stomach and can hear him smothering his noises in the pillow.

He wonders how many times he's slept through this.

He also wonders how he's gonna deal with this new development. And the problem it's caused.

-----

He's _never_ looked at another guy before—and blames that entirely on his mother—and so isn't entirely sure how much he can get away with it, sneaking glances at Koji while they work. He finds that the best way to do it is when they both have to be working on the same coupling or something, and he can wear his welding goggles to hide the fact that he's staring.

It's mostly pretty easy to deal with this sudden and strange attraction to Koji: he avoids making direct eye contact if he can help it, he jacks off in the shower with the radio turned on so loud that everybody else complains, and he tries to avoid talking to him as much as possible. Except that they're sort of becoming friends and all, and so avoiding Koji is getting harder and harder to do.

So by the third week, when he wakes from a messy dream and finds himself palming his cock through his boxers and with Koji's name half-formed on his lips, he decides that he either needs to cut Koji out of his life or get _over_ himself. Either way, it's going to involve some action.

-----

Koji doesn't drink. Stan knows this, and doesn't care, because Koji is the biggest sucker for peer pressure that Stan has ever met. He drinks around him, and offers him a beer and a smile, and Koji takes the beer and sits quietly drinking it.

Stan asks him about himself—things he hasn't asked before: Where did he go for fun on the West Coast and Who were his friends and What was the last movie he saw before he started working the garage scene. Koji answers them, his voice slowly becoming slurred, and when Stan asks about the last person Koji dated, Koji is just drunk enough that he screws up his face.

His voice is almost crystal clear: "Why do you want to know about _him_?" He seems to realize what he's said right after the words come out, but he holds his ground.

Stan puts his chin in his palm. "Didn't know you were a fag, Koji."

"Yeah, well, I am," Koji snaps in retort. "What're you gonna do, beat me up? Go ahead. I've had worse."

Stan laughs, and before Koji can tell him to stop, he leans in and kisses Koji like he might be trying to make a point.

Koji punches him in the jaw, and sleeps in the garage for the next week.

-----

Stan has never had to out himself because he's never thought he'd need to, but he figures telling Koji that he thinks he might be gay might be a lot like telling his mother and grandmother that he wanted to be a mechanic and not a lawyer. So he steels himself up in the same way, and after he's all steeled up, he just sits around in the bunk room. Miguel told Koji he couldn't sleep in the garage any more, so Koji has to come back at some point. Even if it is only to pack up his footlocker.

When Koji comes in, Stan jumps to his feet. Before Stan can say anything, Koji is adjusting his glasses and saying, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"For what happened last week. I shouldn't have done that."

Stan shrugs, rubs the back of his neck, finally says, "I deserved it. Shouldn't've sprung that on you like that. But, look, Koji—"

"I'll stay out of your way from now on," Koji is saying though, staring at his boots. "I'm sure you're all grossed out now, finding out I'm a homosexual. So, uh, I'll ask if there are any more bunk rooms for me to stay in."

Stan blinks at Koji for a second, and then laughs, because this has _got_ to be a joke. Koji looks up, and looks a little wounded, but Stan wipes the tears from his eyes, and goes, "You're _serious_? Damn, Koji, _I_ kissed _you_, and you're worried about me being uncomfy?"

"You were drunk," Koji defends, rubbing his arm nervously.

"Yeah, but I'm not a dumbass." Stan shrugs a little when Koji looks up at him. "Look, I dunno. It's weird, okay? I've never thought about this sorta thing before. What I mean is, you don't have to go or anything. And I'll try not to be all weird or anything. Okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

It wasn't exactly the way anything was supposed to go.

-----

The first time Koji crawls into bed with him, he _has_ just had a nightmare about something. Stan doesn't really wake up, just lifts the covers and lets Koji curl against him. Without opening his eyes, he kisses the back of Koji's neck, and goes back to sleep.

When he wakes up, he thinks it might have all been a dream. Except that Koji can't look at him straight, and any time he has to hand Stan something he's even more of a klutz than normal.

Stan wakes up _that_ night to Koji having a nightmare. And instead of waiting for Koji to suffer through it and lie in the darkness, he climbs off his bunk, and under Koji's sheets, and curls right up behind him. It just feels right to do so, he thinks, in his sleepy haze.

And besides, Koji shuts right up.

-----

"So, what're you dreaming about?"

Koji adjusts his glasses and taps at his keypad and is sullen before he says, "Nothing. I don't remember."

"Pretty strange things not to remember, I'm sure."

"I just don't _know_, Stan. I've never remembered what I've dreamt of." He looks stern. "Focus on what you're doing, would you? You're going to overload that junction."

That's a damn lie, and Stan proves it by turning away and grabbing Koji's hand before he can walk off. Across the garage, the other two mechanics look over at them, but neither look for long. Koji just stares at Stan's hand.

"I want you to know," Stan says softly, earnestly—he has no idea where it's coming from—staring up at Koji, "that you can talk to me. Okay?"

"Okay, Stan."

"I'll help."

"I, I know, Stan." After a second, Koji looks up and smiles nervously. "Thanks."

-----

Stan doesn't really wake up, and doesn't remember when he fell asleep in the first place. But it's dark, and Koji's glasses catch the light from the street lamp outside. He licks his lips as he stares at Stan over the edge of the bunk.

"Ko'?"

"What do you do when you can't sleep?"

Stan blinks at Koji. He _had_ been sleeping. "Work until I can't not sleep."

"What did you do before you had the garage?"

"Run."

"And when there's nothing to work on in the shop?"

"Fuck, Koji, will you just get up here and tell me what you're babbling about?"

Koji scrambles up onto Stan's bunk, and curls under his chin like it's where he belongs. Stan wraps his arms around the smaller mechanic like it's the most natural thing in the world.

And just as he's falling asleep, he swears he can hear Koji whispering, "I think I love you."

-----

They've come a long way, and Stan decides they need to celebrate. They drink soda and eat chips, and Stan thinks he just might be flirting with Koji, except he doesn't know how to flirt. With anything, let alone Koji. Still, they make jokes and sit around on their weekend off, talking about everything that's happened over the year Koji has been at the garage.

And as they wind down, they end up back in the bunk room, and Koji is sitting on the bed, laughing about something Stan said as Stan takes off his clothing to get ready for bed.

Koji goes all quiet when Stan bends to dig through his footlocker, and Stan looks back at him to find Koji staring at him all intent like. He grins, and asks, "Like what you see?"

Koji laughs and blushes and looks away. Stan stands up and puts an exaggerated swagger in his step as he walks over to the bunk, and leans against it. Now he knows he's flirting. He bends down and runs a finger under Koji's chin; he can see Koji's breath falter.

"Why hello there, pretty boy."

"Stop," Koji says, trying to laugh. He pushes Stan's hand off, scoots back on the bunk and digs his toes under his blankets. Stan goes after him, kneeling on the mattress, touching his face gently. Koji slinks back, looking nervous.

When he leans in close, ready to kiss Koji, he's pushed back. Koji is flopping on his side, saying, "That's not funny, Stan," before Stan can really get his bearings straight.

He wonders where he went wrong.

-----

He gives up. Entirely.

-----

Koji, he knows, just got back from an interview he hadn't even wanted to go to, except that somebody had made a call and he'd looked very distressed about it. He sits up and waits, and when Koji comes in, looking tired and harassed, he jumps down off his bunk and touches Koji's shoulder.

Koji falls into his arms and shivers. "I don't want to go."

"So don't," Stan tells him. "Miguel won't just let you go." Koji keeps shaking. Stan drags his hand over the back of Koji's shirt. "_I_ won't let you go."

Koji goes still at that, then pulls away with his perfunctory, "That's not funny." Stan, fed up with the words, drags Koji back and pushes him against the door.

"Why do you think I'm kidding when I say shit like that, Koji? What complex have you got that says that I can't _possibly_ be serious when I say that I want you to stick around? That you're pretty cool? That I _like you_?"

"You don't like me," Koji whispers, and Stan is well aware that the noise that comes out of his mouth isn't flattering. When the noise dies and Koji is left still pinned to the door, he says, "Nobody _actually_ likes me."

"_Bull_shit," Stan hisses.

But Koji steams on, "Nobody's _actually_ liked me since—," but he can't finish that sentence, and just looks crushed. Stan grips his shoulders, and catches his eyes and holds him there. Finally, Koji snaps a little, and says, "Since Amos."

Stan remembers the scar on Koji's belly, and goes for it. Koji flinches, tries to hold his shirt down, but Stan gets under it, and his fingers scrape the puckered, pink flesh of the scar. When he touches it, Koji lets out a desperate noise.

"That's what you're dreaming about."

He has a scar sort of like that, on his leg, where a piece of twisted metal cut into his calve. He remembers the sound of the explosion. He remembers, after that, wanting so badly to be able to fix things so nobody else would have to hear a doctor tell them someone was dead or they'd never be able to walk or anything like that.

"That's why you do this."

The scar on Koji's belly, he finds as his fingers wander, goes from his ribcage down until it touches the inside of his opposite hip. Like he tore himself past a piece of something. It's thick and twisted in places—muscle damage—and Koji shakes as Stan touches it. There are tears in his eyes. He feels the same way that Stan does: fix it before anybody else can get broken.

-----

Amos, he finds out, was a kid just a little older than Koji. He had red hair and liked to do street racing in old-style cars—biodiesel and propane combustion. It's where Koji learned mechanics. Koji tells him of being the squeeze of a drag racer, of the contempt of some of the other boys in their circuit, of the three different threats to Amos that had all culminated into a wreck off the drag. Somebody cut the break line and they never knew until they took a corner too sharp and the front of the car got personal with a tree.

He cries when he talks about it, and all Stan can do is crawl over to him and kiss him. Try to make the tears disappear. Koji bends under his pressure this time, doesn't doubt the comfort. Stan is grateful; he doesn't think he can do anything but this to make it stop hurting, and he knows this won't make it stop hurting.

When he stops kissing, just long enough to shift closer on the bed, Koji pushes him away and apologizes. He's still crying. Stan feels sick and mean, and wonders if he could just get Koji to shut up and fess up and—he smiles, and grabs Koji's hand; kisses his palm, and then hauls himself up onto his bunk.

Koji leaves his light on for a grand five minutes, before the room is plunged into darkness. Stan curls around his pillow, and feels sick.

-----

Stan wakes suddenly to find Koji sitting on the edge of his bed, feet dangling over the ladder, hand clenched in the blankets and staring intently through the dark. He sighs, rubs his eyes, and starts to sit up, ready to ask what the matter is.

Koji kisses him then, a slow, gentle thing with his hand rising slowly to move over the stubble on Stan's cheek, up passed his sideburns, into his hair. Stan is still a moment, and then kissing back, grabbing Koji's elbow and pulling him back slowly.

He wonders what's changed, but thinks that nothing has. They've just decided to stop fooling themselves.


End file.
